'Avatar' is one of those movies that a lot of Blu-ray fans have been waiting for. It's almost entirely digital effects that almost always look good in HD. To add to that, it's using the full capacity of the disc, which means you're getting the best possible picture. Bitrates are maxed and audio quality is at its peak.

But if you're one of those early adopters that decided to play it safe, you're out of luck, at least for now. The Samsung BD-UP500, which plays both HD-DVDs and Blu-ray discs, is currently incompatible with James Cameron's epic film. Samsung says that the issue is one of firmware. There haven't been any updates to the UP5000 since back in 2008, so it's not surprising that the player would run into issues sooner or later.

Tech support from Samsung says that it's a known issue, and one user reports being told that "the issue is already escalated and a new firmware will be released wit in a couple of days.” That would be a surprisingly quick turnaround for Samsung, but a welcome relief to BD-UP5000 owners.